Area: Same building as
Eden. That one on the corner on Nanjing Xi Lu. Round the corner from
Windows Garage. Close to the tourist pit-fighting venue
Han City. Take the lift up to the 5th floor.
Mook takes up the top two floors of the building. The one with the sign hanging outside that says Mook. Which brings us to that…
What’s a mook? You’re a mook…
In
Mean Streets, you first come across the word “mook” in
this exchange between a guy who runs a pool hall and the local mob who’ve come over to pick up that week’s protection money:
Pool Hall Guy: We’re not paying because this guy, this guy’s a fucking mook.
Mook Guy: But I didn’t say nothing.
Pool Hall Guy: And we don’t pay mooks.
Mook Guy: A mook, I’m a mook?
Pool Hall Guy: Yeah.
Mook Guy: What’s a mook?
Robert De Niro: A mook, what’s a mook?
Scary Guy who played Tony’s sister’s psychotic lover in The Sopranos: I don’t know what’s a mook.
Robert De Niro: What’s a mook?
Mook Guy: You can’t call me a mook!
Pool Hall Guy: I can’t?
Mook Guy: Nah.
Pool Hall Guy: [long pause]. I’ll give you mook! [Smashes Mook Guy in the face. Pool hall fight ensues.]
So… what’s a mook? According to
The Oxford English Dictionary The Urban Dictionary, a mook is “1. A male adolescent or young adult exhibiting an unpleasant, self-centered attitude, formed during a sheltered upbringing. 2: One who revels in their own ignorance.” Other citations claim word either means those teenagers who try to emulate
Jackass stunts by roller skating on a trampoline with a bottle rocket shoved up each nostril, or it refers to young men from southern New Jersey who frequent the Jersey Shore in the summer.
Whatever mook means, it’s either an unfortunate name for a new club, or a brilliant piece of marketing meant to burn the name of this new club into the sozzled collective unconscious of Shanghai.
What it is: Big new tables-and-bottles disco. The difference here is that they’ve hooked up with global clubbing brand
Godskitchen, who have consulted on the space and will be booking big acts for the club, at least one international DJ of note each month, so says Mr Godskitchen who we met down there. Nice guy.
Godskitchen is a serious name. They run festivals around the world and book the biggest names in the business. What’s more, they don’t make their bookings according to whatever bum-face has just been voted No. 1 on
DJ Magazine’s big list. They try to find upcoming DJs who are playing better shit and promote them. That’s the idea. Commercial, sure. But with a bit of depth.
For those who have been around a while, Godskitchen used to be in bed with
Bon Bon and do their bookings. Remember Bon Bon? Shit hole, certainly, but they booked some good DJs.
So, Godskitchen are good people for a Chinese club to have in their corner, and this is what might make Mook a bit more interesting than the competition. It means there’s money behind the club (in this case it’s from owners who have clubs in third-tier cities) and an interest in music other than the dismal parade of Rihanna remixes we still hear with such exhausting frequency elsewhere.
For their opening party, Mook booked a week of international DJs, pretty good ones, too – Markus Schulz, David Tort, DJ Mia (the American girl, not the Chinese girl who plays on a perpetual loop in Shanghai) and The Bloody Beetroots.
Which brings us to that… The night of their grand opening (DJ Mia), the club was shut down by the authorities. They claimed there had been complaints from neighbors, though which neighbors would they be? The closest neighbor is another noisy club downstairs. Whoever set the cops on them, the whole week of events was canceled at what must have been horrendous cost. But Mook soldiered on and reopened this week, with a bit more sound-proofing and, presumably, its Shanghai guanxi in order.
Atmosphere: Newsflash: Like a big sit-downy club in China. Lots of low leathery seating. Sofas, probably strewn with people growing more fond of themselves with every bottle of Johnnie Black they suck back. Pretty girls. Surly men.
There’s a cocktail lounge in the back, plus a second floor balcony that overlooks the main bit. The sound system is from
Meyer , a really high-end maker of audio gear. They have a lab in Berkeley and they invent things, such as the
parabolic sound beam. Too nerdy for here. That's just to say that Mook’s sound system is the real deal.
As is the lighting. They’ve got a 3-D video-mapping rig designed by the German conceptual lighting agency
Visual Drugstore. Watch their show-reel
here on Vimeo. Really do watch it. It’s fucking nuts.
Damage: Lots of bottles going around. Lots of packages. About 2000rmb for a bottle of Hennessy with a bottle of Moet. 2380rmb for Johnnie Walker Gold and two bottles of Moet. Blah blah blah. By the glass, things are pretty reasonable: many cocktails are 50rmb (bloody Marys, planter’s punch, margaritas, black Russians, etc), the rest are 60rmb (caipirinhas, Long Islands, etc). Standard club prices, maybe a little lower than you’d expect. Table minimums. You know all that crap already.
Who's going: So far, it’s a pretty Chinese crew. It seemed to be packed from day one. Then the shutdown happened and we’ll have to see whether they return in their droves. They probably will.
But the aim, according to the management, is to attract a mixed bunch. They want us sleazy, hard-partying laowais to go with their classy Chinese. To wit, they’re giving out membership cards to foreigners in Shanghai, making them part of what they’re calling the “Mook Family.” Do you want to be part of a Mook Family? Perhaps it’s bit like the Manson Family. Hope so. Anyway, foreigners can pick up a card, join the Family and then get a free drink every time they go in or 10 drinks for 100rmb from Sunday to Thursday (you have to be there before midnight).
So, will Mook rise above the competition or remain another predictable place to sit on a sofa, stare at people and drink? It depends on whether they book interesting DJs, and whether that’s enough to mean the parties are full of energy, original and something to remember.
The possibility is there, though with the rents involved and the money already dropped on the sound system, the lights and the décor, it’s no surprise that the owners will look first and foremost to the high-spending local crowd.
